


Rivulet

by CrystalBunnyz



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, and its really bad with a terrible ending, in which i dont know what im doing, read if you dare tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2787368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalBunnyz/pseuds/CrystalBunnyz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can you be smiling even when you're dead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rivulet

**Author's Note:**

> It's short and choppy with some incomplete sentences, but intentionally so, if nothing else because that's the only way I know how to express distress without just blatantly saying 'Character A is very upset and stuff.' I'm bad at writing this sort of thing, so I figured I would practice, and it took me weeks to actually finish. Enjoy, I suppose, for whatever it's worth, but read with at least knowing it was indeed practice.

Blood. That was all he could see—the only thing that mattered—too much, so much, too much, right there, pouring in uneven streams from the body of the most important person in the world. It was coming out of too many places and much, much too fast, and he had no idea how to stop it, or if he even could. His breathing was uneven, labored, and he was sure that he was panicking more than the one that was, oh _fuck_ , dying right there in front of him.

“Killua?”

The voice was weak. It barely registered in his mind over the thunderous pounding of his own heart. He was fine. He wasn’t even hurt, not like _he_ was, no, not like he was.

“Gon,” his own voice sounded weak, too far away, like it didn’t actually come out of his throat. It sounded like the wind was knocked out of him, as though he were hit by a freight train, though arguably he would have claimed it would be easier to breathe even if he were hit by one. But he could recover from that. This. This was different. Breathing was important. That was something he needed to do. No—not him. Gon needed to.

“Why?” Gon’s voice was still so quiet, so weak, and despite all of that it still sounded like _Gon_ , a Gon that wasn’t dying.

“What?”

“You look… you look sad,” Gon’s body was trembling. His everything was trembling, from his voice to his half-lidded eyes that were too glassy. Especially those eyes that seemed to see little to nothing, but were open anyway. It was a sight that Killua had been accustomed to. But no, never like this. Never, ever like this. These were the eyes of someone that was dying. That was not new for Killua, but these overwhelming feelings of helplessness and desperation—those were what were novel for him.

He was terrified to his very core. He can’t lose Gon.

“Killua.”

“Gon.”

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Gon asked with a smile. His eyes were unfocused and while were looking straight at Killua, they saw straight through him. They saw nothing.

“That’s why, isn’t it?”

Killua felt his breath hitch.

“I know I'm dying," Gon said. His hand--too pale, too shaky,--reached up for Killua, resting on his cheek. It was cold. Too cold. "You're sad, Killua."

"I... yeah," Killua couldn't even protest it. It would have been too difficult to lie to Gon.

"I've never seen you sad before, have I?" Gon didn't make it sound like a question. It was a statement, and it was the truth. "I don't like it."

"I don't like being sad either," Killua replied. It was a half-hearted, failed attempt at light humor.

"I want you to be happy, Killua."

Killua gnawed on his cheek. He couldn't take this. He couldn't. He can't.

"I want you to live and be happy," Gon said, his voice slipping slightly as his mouth drooped into a sloppy smile. Was it a smile? Killua didn't want to look. He was scared to. Too scared. Terrified.

_How,_ Killua wanted to ask. _How can I be happy?_

"Because I can't," Gon added. It was weak. Weaker than everything else he said. Too weak. He was going. He was leaving. Leaving him, leaving Killua, _again_.

Not again.

"Gon," Killua's voice was trembling just as much as Gon himself was. "I don't... I don't think I can."

"But you... you have to, Killua. I want you to. Don't you want to?" Gon's hand reached just a bit further to trace his fingers across Killua's cheek.

_No._

"I... yes," Killua whispered brokenly, dropping his head so his eyes were shielded from Gon's knowing, unfocused gaze.

"I mean,” Gon’s head lolled back to rest against Killua’s thigh, eyes glassy and staring at nothing yet saw everything. “We’ll see each other again.”

“Like what? In the next life?” Killua asked. A laugh caught in his throat painfully enough it felt more like a broken sob. Chances are, though, it was indeed just that. He would never admit as much.

“Yeah, that. It’d be nice, right?” Gon’s eyes eased shut and slowly cracked again.

“Yeah. It would,” Killua’s voice was hushed enough he didn’t think that he himself even heard it.

“Killua?”

“Mm?”

“Promise me something,” Gon prompted.

“What?”

“That we will see each other again,” a shuddering breath of air escaped Gon’s quivering lips.

“We will,” Killua stated without hesitation. That he had no doubt of. Or at least, he just…

“But only later, right?”

A beat of silence followed Gon’s weak voice.

“Right.”

A longer silence followed Killua’s hesitated response filled only by shaking breaths from the emotionally and physically drained boy himself.

“I wonder,” Killua murmured, “If you even heard that.” He slid his hand up to push coarse hair out from Gon’s face. He was cold, stiff, but the look on his face didn’t make him look…

Well, dead.

_How,_ Killua wondered. _How can you be smiling even though you’re dead?_

He gently lifted Gon’s shoulders and lowered him gently against the dirt beneath them.

“It’s later, right?” Killua muttered under his breath. “You—you died, right here, in my arms, and you expect me not to actually, or rather, you expect me to actually manage to _live_ even though you are—or rather, you were—my closest… my closest…”

“Gon, I can’t.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”


End file.
